Building a Sustainable and Patient-Centered DME Program [AAOE DME Series Session 1

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The webinar launched a new four-part AAOE DME series focused on building, measuring, expanding, and scaling a patient-centered durable medical equipment program. Alec Johnson emphasized that DME should be treated as a core orthopedic service line, with the patient journey at the center. He outlined key pillars for a sustainable program: clinical alignment with providers, standardized protocols, strong operations and staffing accountability, electronic inventory management, compliance and revenue documentation, and clear patient education about costs and care.<br /><br />He stressed that every handoff in the DME workflow can either improve the patient experience or create friction, so ownership of each step must be clear. He also highlighted the importance of provider engagement, infrastructure, and standardization before scaling.<br /><br />During Q&A, participants discussed dead stock, LCD updates, reimbursement transparency, audits, and standardizing documentation across sites. Select Ortho then described its end-to-end DME management platform, which claims to reduce operational burden, improve compliance, and increase profitability through a people-process-technology model. The session closed by inviting attendees to the next webinar on measuring DME performance.

Keywords

AAOE DME series

patient-centered durable medical equipment

orthopedic service line

provider engagement

standardized protocols

electronic inventory management

compliance documentation

DME workflow

reimbursement transparency